Solar hot water is easily the most cost effective
energy project. We americans are so funny about the way we hoard
hot water, keeping a few dozen gallons in the closet in case
the next ice age sneaks up on us in our unawares. Everyone else
on the planet gifted with domestic hot water heats only what they
need. (In a later article I will write more about instantaneous
hot water heaters, the only acceptable fossil-fueled hot water
source.)

Keeping a tankful of hot
water in the closet is just as sensible as leaving the car running
in the garage in case you want to go somewhere!

In gentle climates like coastal California, where
freezing is a rare and transient phenomenon, harvesting hot water
from the sun is easy. Even in hard-freezing climates along the
northern tier and into Canada, solar hot water PRE-HEATERS pay
for themselves in two or three years.

The idea is simple: water usually comes to us, whether
from the well, spring, or water company, at a chilly sixty °F
(degrees Fahrenheit). Just letting water sit in a tank indoors
can allow it to warm up to room temperature, but setting such
a tank in the sun in a passive solar room of its own may in summer
supply enough heat for washing dishes or a shower. Even in winter,
solar hot water heaters can warm the water by ten or twenty degrees
in the harshest climates. Every degree gained for free from the
sun reduces the energy required to heat the water to our liking.

Our hot water system (shown in the diagram) sends water from the
well, which reaches 67°F in the summer, through a solar batch
hot water heater on the roof, where the temperature may rise as
high as 140°F on a sunny day. On the first Sunday in September,
a slight cloud cover coupled with a fit of cleanliness by the
occupants reduced the gain to a mere 50°F (!).

Our system is the simplest type there is - no pumps,
sensors, thermostats, heat exchangers, or relays to go wrong.
A black tank is enclosed by a well-insulated box that keeps the
heat in at night. Sun shining through the double insulated plastic
window on the front of the enclosure heats the black tank and
the water within, which stratifies, the hottest rising to the
top. Baffles in the tank keep the cold make-up water from mixing
with the hottest water drawn from the top of the tank when someone
turns on a hot water tap. The water pressure comes from the supply.

There are several other types of solar hot water
heaters, but all share the idea that they are PRE-heating. In
all but the sunniest places, periods of cloudy weather and patterns
of water use - early morning showers! - demand a secondary source
of heat. Veteran solar hot water harvesters are proud to tell
you that they can turn the secondary source off during a few months
of the year. We have valves and a timer which allow us to take
a wholly solar bath, and to insure that there is always hot water
for morning washing.

Electric back-up heating is the easiest to control,
but is by far the least kind to the planet. Heating ANYTHING with
electricity is wasteful and inefficient, because there are so
many energy conversions involved - from original fuel to steam
to spin to electricity - followed by the tortuous and wasteful
transmission from generator to point of use. Natural gas, propane,
and kerosene are non-renewable fossil fuels, and typically do
only a fair job of converting heat content to hot water, nor are
they easy to control. In a conventional american home where all
the hot water is made with fossil fuels, they are cheaper, and
utilities across the land have shifted consumers to them. Biomass
hot water heating, especially as a by-product of a wood-fired
gasifier, is probably the only sustainable technique, and this
works well only in places where the fire is kept burning 24 hours
a day 12 months a year.

Freeze protection, the major problem with solar hot
water, is simple, too. There's enough mass in the heated water,
and the box is well enough insulated, that the water never gets
near freezing, but even if it did, there is always a pillow of
air in the tanks, which the water would compress if it froze.
The pipes connecting the batch tank to the heated interior of
the house are kept as short as possible.

Batch hot water heaters work very well anywhere the
sun shines and night-time temperatures seldom drop below 20°F.
Some manufacturers of batch tanks claim that their systems have
been tested in, and survived, days at fifty below!

Local conditions determine which solar hot water
strategy will work for you, but Einstein's rule of appropriate
simplicity must be applied:

Everything must be as simple as possible,
but no simpler.

During the orgy of energy retrofitting which followed
the 1973 OPEC Oil Embargo, thousands of solar hot water heaters
were installed to garner tax breaks. Since subsidization and sense
seldom coexist, these systems violated Einstein's precept, and
failed due to their own over-complexity. Sadly, this gave solar
hot water an undeservedly bad name. Happily, new technology is
simpler, lessons were learned, and more appropriate and reliable
systems can now be gotten from reputable local installers: they
are your best source of information about what will work best
for you. Look in the yellow pages for plumbers who claim solar
expertise. As with any journeyman, it would be prudent to ask
for, and interview, references. As explained below, all but the
most complicated solar hot water systems can be installed confidently
by a competent do-it-yourselfer.

In the table which follows you will find some of
the conditions and salient features of the different types of
solar hot water systems available. Generally, each successive
system includes the attributes of the one above it, so the Drain
Back system may include a small PV-powered pump.

Solar collectors (may be filled with antifreeze; Vodka works well) drain back into tank or heat exchanger when pump is not running. Hot water and collector fluid stored indoors. Fairly simple active pumping. $$$

If you are a reasonably handy do-it-yourselfer, you
can manage to install anything but the complicated Drain Down
systems, unless you have an advanced degree in fluid hydrodynamics.
Most reputable solar suppliers - see the SUN links page -
will be able to get all the necessary parts.

If you mean to have a system installed, break-even
will not come quite so quickly, but you will spare yourself the
anguish (or delight) of making the technology work. Prepare yourself
for a certain amount of "upselling" from vendors, who
always prefer to install a little more hardware than is required.
While information may be solicited from any plumber who includes
"solar" in his advertisement in the yellow pages, you
must insist on a good track record, longevity in the community,
and a can-do attitude from your installer.

Solar hot water technology runs from the used oilcan
in the sun on the roof - the really fancy ones are painted black
- to sophisticated drain-back systems costing many thousands of
dollars. Surprisingly, all of these systems are outstandingly
productive and cost effective if wisely chosen and well installed.
Heating hot water with the sun is a great deal!

How great a deal? We at the Solar Utilities Network
can no more resist counting the money we save than we can resist
the juicy alliteration. In the example given above, a semi-sunny
September Sunday, we drew two 20-gallon baths and washed ten gallons
worth of dishes, for a total consumption of 50 gallons of hot
water. Our electric hot water heater would take an hour to heat
that much water from 67°F to 117°F and consumes 3.8
kilowatts while doing so. We pay 13.2¢ a kilowatt-hour for
electricity, so that's a savings of about 40¢. We are frugal
in our hot water use, and our utility tells us that a typical
family may pay about $1 a day for hot water. Our batch hot water
system cost just over $900 counting money for the young man we
hired to help with the heavy lifting, and we installed it ...I
can't believe it! Eight years ago! At our average savings of 40¢
a day it paid itself off about two years ago, and will continue
to shave $146 a year off our electric bill (assuming the rates
stay the same - fat chance!) A typical family might expect a typical
$2,000 solar hot water system to pay off in about 5½ years. A good
solar hot water pre-heating system should last 15 years, so after 5½
years, the savings can be considered interest on the original investment.

But that's really not the point, is it? Why waste dead dinosaurs on things
we can get freely from the sun?

Heating water with the sun makes great economic sense, but what about heating your home with the sun. In the next article, Solar Space Heating, we explain how to do it, and why it makes sense ... and cents!

If you haven't already audited your energy use, please read about Energy Auditing your home in the previous article.